Eliot Spitzer arrived at the New York City Board of Elections office last night with several cardboard boxes which, he said, were 27,000 petition signatures.

Without regard to how many of those signatures are actually valid, it means his campaign team collected an average of 281 signatures per hour over about 96 hours. In any event, the total is likely far enough beyond the required minimum to withstand any challenge.

Meanwhile, Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president and Spitzer's Democratic opponent, announced he had filed 100,000 signatures, which is the most of any citywide candidate.

Stringer's petitioning advantage is more a demonstration of his establishment backing than his popular support. Shortly after he decided to withdraw from the mayor's race and run instead of comptroller, Stringer managed to clear the field of other Democratic candidates, and became the default choice of the party organizations. So whenever a Democratic club carried petitions for its chosen slate, its members were collecting signatures for Stringer.

1 p.m. Weiner discusses his proposal for ferry ridership in New York City, at the East 34th Street Ferry Terminal, by East 34th Street (below the FDR Drive Main Road) Manhattan. @AnthonyWeiner #NYC2013 #KeysToTheCity

6 p.m. Democratic mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio talk with voters at the Celebrate Brooklyn Summit, by the north entrance to the Prospect Park Bandshell (entrance on 9th Street and Prospect Park West) Brooklyn. @DeBlasioNYC

Reuters: "Spitzer has enough signatures to run for NYC comptroller" [Francesca Trianni]

"Spitzer's opponents or others could challenge signatures for reasons such as incomplete addresses or missing dates." [Jennifer Peltz]

"There will undoubtedly be challenges to many of the signatures as invalid, and it could take weeks before it’s resolved, election experts predicted." [Maggie Haberman]

The 27,000 signatures Spitzer submitted "will likely make it harder for challenges to succeed in reducing Mr. Spitzer's total below the necessary threshold." [Andrew Grossman and Joe Jackson]

Spitzer: "I would think that anybody who would challenge 27,000 signatures would be sending a statement that they don’t really believe in democracy, they don’t believe in primaries, they don’t believe in the fundamental notion of competition to seek the votes of the citizens of this state." [Sally Goldenberg, Georgette Roberts and Carl Campanile]

Scott Stringer said he's not about knocking people off the ballot. [NY1]

A Wall Street Journal columnist thinks post-scandal pols should take a lesson from John Profumo and walk away. [Peggy Noonan]

2014

Rodney Capel, the executive director of the New York State Democratic Party, said they are developing "the most advanced digital outreach operation of any state in the country." [Erica Orden]